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Zahra Edalati
Everyday Peace:
Iranian Women’s Movement and Peaceful Transformation
Faculty of Social Science Master’s Programme in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research Master’s Thesis June 2020
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ABSTRACT
Zahra Edalati: Everyday Peace: Iranian Women’s Movement and Peaceful Transformation
Tampere University
Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research Program June 2020
Women's life and rights in Iran have encountered several challenges, and Iranian women have made considerable efforts to transform society and increase gender sensitivity in times of patriarchal rules and culture. This thesis sheds light on how Iranian women’s movement and women resisting models have sought to transform society. The research approaches the topic from the perspective of peace and conflict studies and through the studies that deal with slow peace, bottom-up peace building, and conflict transformation theories. The analysis of this research begins by discussing the forms of women’s activism through feminist discourses and observes how women’s movements have emerged locally and historically. It then turns to the models and strategies through which women have been resisting and transforming from one form of identity to another, at the same time, transforming society through their bottom-up activities.
The data of this research comes from nine narrative interviews with different members of the women’s movement who are living in Iran. The data is analyzed by using narrative analysis tools and classifying narrations to different themes. The findings show that these women focus on changing the discriminative interpretations and male-centered readings of Islamic laws and regulations. Iranian women challenge armed patriarchy by their unique strategies such as bargaining with patriarchy. They challenge the political system at a slow pace and with their lights off. These women contribute to the process of resisting and transforming society regardless of their political and religious backgrounds, ideology, and social class.
Moreover, women activists attach a positive value to family, motherhood, femininity, and what they view as stereotypes while they ask for changes in patriarchal laws. They do not see religion itself as a source of restrictions but rather the interpretations of religious texts and patriarchal culture, which result in unacceptable gender relations. Accordingly, this thesis expands the notions of patriarchy in the context of religion and culture. This thesis concludes by suggesting that women's unity is a crucial issue within the Iranian women's movement. According to the findings of this thesis, Iranian women’s rights activists from different backgrounds need to shape their unity to make changes in patriarchal rules and to increase gender sensitivity in society.
Keywords: women’s movement, Iran, peaceful transformation, slow peace, bottom-up peace buildings, and slow violence.
The originality of this thesis has been checked using the Turnitin Originality Check service.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Tarja Väyrynen for her support, guidance, and help through the process of my thesis. I would also like to thank Docent Élise Féron for her support and commenting on my work. I want to thank everyone who in their work or generally in life strive for women’s rights and gender equality.
I want to thank my spouse Majid Imani for believing in me and for his love and support throughout my study. Lastly, I want to thank Yalda and Mohamad, my little angels, for their love and understanding.
4 Table of Contents
Abstract 2
Contents 4
1.Introduction 6
1.2. Structure of the thesis 8
2. Theoretical Framework 9
2.1. Introduction 9
2.2. Everyday peace and Bottom-up Peace building 10
2.3. Feminist Peace 11
2.4. Slow Violence 13
2.5. Structural Violence 14
2.6. Patriarchy 15
2.7. Conflict Transformation 17
3. Methodology and ethical discussion 21
3.1. Data Collection 21
3.2. Interviews 22
3.3. Data Analysis 24
3.4. Ethical Discussion 25
3.5. The Interviewees: The individuals behind these narrations 28
3.5.1. Minoo 28
3.5.2. Beti 29
3.5.3. Shahla 29
3.5.4. Gorji 29
3.5.5. Fatemeh 30
3.5.6. Safie 30
3.5.7. Mari 31
3.5.8. Tayebe 31
3.5.9. Sara 32
4. Historical context 32
4.1. Constitutional Time 33
4.2. Pahlavi Time 34
4.2.1. Second Pahlavi Shah 37
4.3. Times of the Islamic Revolution 38
4.3.1. Reform Time 45
4.3.2. Ahmadinezhad Arena 46
5. Analysis 49
5.1. Feminism 50
5.2. Islamic feminism 56
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5.3. The Discourse of Equality and Gender Justice 60
5.4. The Circle of Trustworthy Women 62
5.5. Patriarchal culture and women’s resistance 65
5.5.1. Bargaining with patriarchy as a strategy 74
5.6. Women’s NGOs and the Role of NGOs in society 79
5.7. Women in politics 84
6. Conclusion 88
6.1. Findings 88
7. Bibliography 93
APPENDIX A 103
APPENDIX B 106
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1.Introduction
I hear some sounds from the train of domination. We, women, try to put ourselves in between the doors of this train to let some air come in and make more spaces for women.1
This research is a journey from the perspective of a woman who was born and grew up in Iran after the Islamic revolution and spent her childhood during the Iran-Iraq war in Tehran. Women's rights have been an essential part of my life, and many of the ideas I explore here have come through my lenses. From childhood, women's rights issues have been a matter of hot debate around our kitchen table. My mother is a lawyer, and she was a law student at Tehran University when the Islamic Revolution happened. She left the university for three years during the first months after the Islamic revolution for a time, which was also called the Cultural Revolution. At that time, the government decided not to allow women to study law at universities, and they believed that there would be no need for women’s lawyers or judges. Some years later though, politicians retreated and allowed women to study law at the universities. However, in those days, a woman could not be a judge in an Islamic system. The state power assumed that women could not bring justice to the court, as they considered them as more emotional in comparison to men. My mother continued her studies and became a lawyer in spite of all the boundaries that she was constantly encountering. As I remember, all the time, she was looking for a way to bargain with a judge in the court; sometimes judges did not let her enter the court because of her gender.
Times passed, and Iranian politicians changed their policy to a more moderate version. However, issues such as women's right to divorce, child custody by mothers, women's blood money (diyeh)2 , and their participation in civil society and politics, etc., have remained challenging issues. When my generation graduated from school and was preparing for passing university entrance exams, boys had better opportunities to be placed at the universities in comparison to the girls. I was 22 years old when I started my job as a journalist. At that time, I was looking for a utopia, like the other members of my generation. I remember a time when our chief editor asked me to wear a black scarf and a long black Mantou at work. Although, I grew up in a religious family, “color” was not
1 Minoo, 10th of January 2018
2 Blood money (diyeh) is the amount of money that a murderer or one who has made bodily harm has to pay to the victim or their family as compensation. According to the articles 294 and 300 of the Iranian Islamic penal code, blood money or compensation given for a female victim is half of the male victims (Ahmadi Khorasani 2009).
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the issue of restriction to my mind. That chief editor was a young man with open-minded attitudes to politics, not to women. Women journalists who were working with him tried more to change his opinion; however, the time and politics did not allow him to be more amenable to our demands.
Ahmadinezhad came to power, the Green Movement3 was suppressed, and we had to leave our jobs. Now more than ten years have passed and continuously I see how Iranian women try to negotiate the issue of equality in their own ways.
In this research, I have chosen to focus on the micro-level and reveal the individual voices from inside the country. These voices are parts of the women’s movement in Iran. My networks in this research are unique, and they are from different parts of the movement. I have tried to cover different generations as well as different political and religious backgrounds. The cultural and political situation in Iran has created some unique features where access to people is concerned.
One should have some prior connections: friends of friends, or friends of the family should know you; only then will people trust you and allow you access. I tried to use my journalistic connections and some familiar names to gain the trust of my interviewees. The research is based on nine open- ended narrative interviews with women activists and NGO leaders. I conducted these interviews during January 2018 and February 2018, and one of them in June 2018. When I began to arrange my interviews, I could get a micro sketch of the whole situation and realized how Iranian women activists do their job under abnormalities.
As we become famous, state power starts to monitor us.4
Additionally, during my stay in Iran for data collection, some Iranian people began protests against the economic policies that the state was taking. At the same time, some Iranian women also started protests against compulsory veiling. Those demonstrations affected the data gathering process of this research and some of my interviewees postponed our meeting to another time or refused to do it. This research aims to find the characteristics of women's movement in Iran, and sheds light on women's strategy in response to legitimized violence. This thesis explores how these women sought to transform society peacefully. This research wants to elaborate on how Iranian women activists shape their ways of resistance against totalitarian strategies from a peace study perspective. As Mac
3 The Green movement began in 2009 after presidential elections when the voters were looking for their votes by a slogan:
“where is my vote?” The state power suppressed this peaceful movement and the movement’s leaders have been placed under arbitrary house arrest (Kamalipour 2010: 254).
4 This quote is from one of the women activist's attitudes, who did not agree to be interviewed by me. However, our phone conversation lasted more than half an hour.
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Ginty (2013) asserts, women like other single individuals can define peace on the ground, and they can find and recognize the possible and proper way to sustain it. This is precisely what this thesis seeks to examine. Interviewees for this research show the readers how Iranian women themselves see their experiences, and how they have built their identity as women's rights activists in Iran.
Women's rights activists in this research shared their personal stories as independent actors. They discussed their approaches in helping other women in asserting their rights. These women try to explore the possibilities of coexistence between feminism, Islam, and cultural traditions through their experiences of being a woman in the Iranian society. Such research is valuable as it gives us significant insights into the real lives of the women and lets the readers know about Iranian women activists’ attempts to establish their identity as a woman. When they lower their voices to make sure nobody else hears them, I see how Iranian women want to go forward “with their lights off.”5 They trusted me in a time when they did not even trust the walls. I feel responsible to share their voices impartially and have not let the pen make any changes to their voices.
1.2. Structure of the thesis
There are six chapters in this thesis, including the introduction (Chapter1), in which I discuss the reason for looking at this topic and what makes it important for me. In the first contextual chapter (Chapter2), I discuss the theoretical frameworks which are used in this thesis. These conceptual frameworks are everyday peace and bottom-up peace building, feminist peace, slow violence, structural violence, patriarchy, and conflict transformation. In Chapter Three, I discuss my methodology, in which I justify my data collection process. I also discuss the reasons behind using narrative interviews and my positionality in this research. Then I elaborate on the data analysis process as well as the ethical considerations. In this chapter, I also provide information about my participants, the organizations, and the cities and times in which I conducted my interviews.
In Chapter Four, I look at the women’s movement through a historical perspective to better understand the movement. I point out that the women’s movement began at the end of the nineteenth century and the time of constitutional revolution in 1905-1911. Then I refer to Pahlavi's reign and Reza Shah’s ‘women’s awakening program’. Besides, I provide some information about women's status before and after the Islamic revolution in 1979 and the time of male-dominated laws
5I took this description from “Shahla”, one of my interviewees. This interview was on 13th January 2018
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under the direct control of the clerics. This chapter looks at the factual grounds for elaborating why Iranian women activists are reluctant to be labeled feminists.
In Chapter Five, the analysis chapter, I discuss how the specific themes emerge from my research material. I found similar themes in how my participants define women’s movement in Iran, how they resist the totalitarian system and their approaches in response to the legitimized violence. I did not define these themes before I conducted my interviews. Themes emerged during the transcription process. In this chapter, I refer to women's voices by putting their words under specific topics. The main thematic categories that are introduced in this chapter are feminism, Islamic feminism, the discourse of equality and justice, circle of trustworthy women, patriarchal culture and women resistance, the functions of women’s NGOs, and women in politics. There is a sub-theme that is bargaining with patriarchy as a strategy.
In the last chapter, I draw my conclusions and findings by summarizing my arguments. I argue that Iranian women’s main focus is on changing the discriminative interpretations and male-centered readings of Islamic laws and regulations. I show how they challenge armed patriarchy by their unique strategies such as bargaining with patriarchy.
2. Theoretical Framework 2.1. Introduction
Part of the theoretical framework in this research revolves around three concepts relevant to the women's movement: everyday peace, bottom-up peace building, and slow violence. The other conceptual tools for analysing the research materials are structural violence, feminist peace and patriarchy and conflict transformation. I try to use these theories and relate these concepts to the research questions. Through this theoretical framework, I try to show how women situate themselves in different public and private temporalities. Besides, I try to shed light on their reactions, experiences, and their interactions with political authority and the historical background of the country. In this respect, it is worth referring to what Mac Ginty suggests: “identification of everyday peace indicators can contribute to a conflict transformation process by encouraging individuals and groups involved to interrogate the bases of conflict and to envisage what peace might look like” (Mac Ginty 2013: 61).
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2.2. Everyday peace and Bottom-up Peace building
The orthodox approach of peace building focuses on liberal institutionalism. However, this approach has been criticized for its indifference to the locals and the people who are embedded in these structures. On the other hand, the concept of an ‘everyday peace’ strives to take into account the agency and activity of those groups who are habitually marginalized or excluded; it uses their experiences as the basis for a more receptive way of understanding peace (Berents & Mcevoy-Levy 2015: 119). As orthodox and statist research agendas frequently concentrate on institutions and traditional views security and peace, it becomes theoretically subversive. Everyday peace, contrarily, draws on ideas of vernacular and human security. Thus, it is much more context-specific and involves the interpretations and choices made by individuals and communities as they travel across life (Mac Ginty & Firchow 2016: 309).
“Everyday peace is not a destination, rather it is always in the process of becoming” (Berents &
Mcevoy-Levy 2015: 124). It allows communities to identify the ground realities of peace (Mac Ginty 2013: 62). Roger Mac Ginty (2014: 549), defines everyday peace as the regular practices used by individuals and collectives in the journey of life in a severely alienated society that may suffer from ethnic or religious divide; such a society may, furthermore, be disposed to episodic direct violence in addition to protracted or structural violence. The concept of ‘everyday peace’ has been part of a critical research agenda that seeks to recognize the agency and significance of actors at the sub-state level (Mac Ginty & Firchow 2016: 309).
The space of the everyday is a political space; here the most marginal and discards of formal political discourses find collective meaning and organize in response to conflict, violence, and exclusion (Berents & Mcevoy-Levy, S. 2015: 116). Indeed, it inevitability extends to the role and life of ordinary people and their everyday contributions to peace processes (Brubaker & Cooper 2000, cited in Pickering 2007: 3). As Mac Ginty (2013: 62) asserts, bottom-up research can shed light on the role of minority groups such as women and their everyday practices to rebuild their lives and their contribution to peace. Hence, this type of research seeks to include all the voices, political and ideological, in society. The exclusion of minorities can be a significant hindrance in accessing sustainable peace and making institutional reforms (Pickering 2007: 2).
As such, looking at individuals and their lives and hearing the voice of them on the ground provides
‘defensible data’. These kinds of data are valuable as individuals are confronted with several political, cultural, and historical constraints (Laitin 1998) in their everyday life and their contribution to peace (Pickering 2007: 12). According to Ginty & Richmond (2013: 773), women’s
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activists can be defined as everyday peacemakers when they resist and strive for political awakening and question the role of the state and its hierarchical system in their everyday practices.
In comparison to top-down approaches, the importance of including the micro-level data and hearing their stories is that they have different perspectives. Individuals “have a different position to power, the power to write, to over-write and be heard" (Mac Ginty & Firchow 2016: 309).
In recent years increasing attention has been placed on the ‘everyday’ as a site for peacebuilding and resistance (Berents & Mcevoy-Levy 2015: 116). As Mac Ginty & Richmond (2013: 763-4) assert, “the ‘local turn’ is associated to the critical approach to peace and conflict studies and has been heavily influenced by critical and post-structural theory, postcolonial scholarship and practice, interdisciplinarity, as well as a range of alternative ethnographic, sociological and action-related methodologies”. According to their arguments, a particularly important role has been played by scholars and practitioners from the global South in the emergence of the local turn, as well. Indeed, the latter has become to be regarded as a necessary exercise to understand the changing conditions of peace: understanding the critical and resistant agencies that have a stake in a subaltern view of peace, how they act to uncover or engage with obstacles, with violence, and with structures that maintain them.
This thesis uses a theoretical approach to analyse deeply fragmented societies (Mac Ginty 2014).
This thesis uses everyday peace as “everyday diplomacy or people-to-people activities to move society towards conflict transformation” (Vaittinen 2017: 157). I refer to the notion that “politics of peace,” as Jabri asserts, “is located primarily with individuals, communities, and social movements, involved in critical engagement with the multiform governance structures, as well as non-state agents, they encounter in their substantial claims for human rights and justice” (Berents
& Mcevoy-Levy 2015: 124).
2.3. Feminist Peace
In doing this research, I was faced with the question of whether feminist peace traditions are applicable in analysing the research material. Although using the traditional feminist approach can be very limited and exclude those women activists who do not define themselves as feminists, a feminist peace approach can be applicable here in the sense that all the women in this research are engaged in feminist work by helping each other and improving the society. Indeed, I apply the theory of feminist peace to analyse the data of this thesis.
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As (Wibben.et al 2019: 86) puts it, feminist peace research is a new and innovative branch of the social sciences. Feminist peace is transdisciplinary as well as intersectional and normative.
“Although it draws from disciplines such as peace and conflict research (in and outside of international relations) as well as feminist security studies, it also differs from them in terms of research scope and research design” (Wibben.et al 2019: 86). However, according to Confortini (2006: 334), there would be some dangers in merging feminist and peace projects. She asserts that
“While I agree that there are dangers in merging feminist and peace projects, I believe that feminism and peace studies have much in common and should not disregard the contributions they can each make to the other’s field.”
As Confortini (2006: 334) argues, many feminists and peace theorists share a commitment to new thinking and alternative ways to look at problems. She adds: “they both address issues of identity and human needs as opposed to power politics and they acknowledge the existence of multiple realities and cultural and historical differences in worldviews.” According to (Wibben.et al 2019:
100) “Feminist peace is multiple. It is spatially-temporally layered, endlessly complex, and emergent phenomena, in the constant process(es) of becoming”.
Confortini (2006: 333) argues that feminism can benefit Galtung’s theory of violence which is valuable for feminist peace studies too. As Wibben.et al (2019: 86) puts it, “feminist peace research asks questions about unequal gender relations and power structures within any given conflict environment”. According to Sjoberg (2013: 176, 181), feminism reframes what counts as threats to peace, redefines the concept of peace itself, and makes important suggestions on how to seek peace based on gender analysis. Feminist theorizing of peace suggests many transformative observations when “feminist perspectives focus a critical lens on the meaning of peace, often making invisible violence visible”. As Wibben.et al (2019: 90) puts it, Boulding (2000) asserts that feminist scholarly tradition of peace research looks at violence and peace as a spectrum. Thus, peace becomes a dynamic concept one that is constantly in the making, a process laying the bases for relationships of support within ‘multiple worlds’ (Vellacott 2008 & Ling 2014 cited in Wibben.et al 2019: 90).
In other words, feminist peace research methodologies “open the spaces of our collective (but not coherent) imagination” and “compel us to act/theorize in prefigurative ways”, to imagine and create together (in our theories and practices) the world we want to see (Wibben.et al 2019: 90).
Claire Ducanson (2016) refers to feminist peace as an inclusive, expansive and transformative notion. According to Ducanson, “in terms of inclusivity, all society members should empower, and feminist peace considers the everyday needs of the people at the same time that try to make life worth living” (Ducanson 2016, cited in Donahoe 2017: 212). In this respect, “A key characteristic
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of feminist peace research is its grounding in everyday lives. It asserts that actions at the micro- level are intimately connected to and intertwined with macro-level events (Wibben.et al 2019: 101).
Additionally, as Vaittinen.et al. (2020: 188) argue, drawing its strength from feminist theory and feminist activism, feminist peace research aims to throw light not only on the unseen but do so in a way that becomes a basis for change and redress. It also then becomes a tool for the improvement of people’s lives and progress towards gender equality.
I refer to the notion that feminist peace can help us better comprehend “violence as a complicated process through which social relations of power are built, legitimized, reproduced, and naturalized”
(Confortini 2006: 356). Besides, feminism thereby defines new approaches in making peace and looking for peace (Sjoberg 2013: 185).
2.4. Slow Violence
Another concept that is relevant to this thesis is slow violence. Rob Nixon (2011) elaborates about slow violence in his book Slow Violence and Environmentalism of the Poor. Nixon argues: “slow violence is a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, attritional violence and that is typically not viewed as violence at all. Instead, slow violence is incremental and accretive" (Nixon 2011: 2). The term slow violence is far from the traditional explanation of violence where violence needs to be explosive and visible (Pain 2018: 387). Nixon and his slow violence project try to clarify political and literary forms of resistance to slow violence as it gives voice to “the environmentalism of the poor,” a term coined by sociologist Ramachandra Guha (Carruth 2013: 848).
Although Nixon concentrates on the environmental issues in his project, his theory has significant relevance to peace and conflict studies as well. Nixon considers the gradual effects of globalization and situates his theoretical approach to Galtung's (1969) structural violence (Pain 2018: 387), which overlaps with slow violence (Vaittinen 2017: 46). Galtung (1969) defines structural violence as a condition of social injustice and inequality especially in the distribution of power (Vaittinen 2017:
41).
I take Nixon's (2011) definition of slow violence as a point of departure to examine various types of violence that women experience, which are, in many cases, far from the definitions of direct violence.
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2.5. Structural Violence
The term structural violence, which originates in the writings of Galtung (1969), as indicated above, is another conceptual framework that I want to apply in analysing my thesis material. According to Galtung (1969), “structural violence is silent, it does not show—it is essentially static, it is the tranquil waters. In a static society, personal violence will be registered, whereas structural violence may be about as natural as the air around us. Besides, by structural violence, the unequal political system produces the harm” (Vaittinen 2017: 159).
In this respect, the members of the dominant culture become habituated to inequality, and as a result, society does not consider structural violence as violence. Galtung defines structural violence as the violence that is about the structure of society where some people, such as women in some communities, may be considered less than human and may experience worse treatment (Price 2012:
6). In these structures, the dominant culture does not let all the members of society access their basic needs, and groups of people suffer from the uneven distribution of power and resources (Confortini 2006: 372).
Applying gender lenses to shed light on different incidents shows how various sectors of social life are affected by the mutual relationship between violence and (gender) power relations (Harders 2011: 135). In the same manner, structures of domination and hidden power relations have crucial roles in our everyday practices (Confortini 2006: 388-9). In terms of uneven access to resources and power through gender lines, “there are fundamental hierarchical relations and all societies today are patriarchal” (Iadicola and Shupe 2012: 384).
In this respect, as Confortini (2006: 341) argues it is crucial to see violence as a process that occurs through social practices while considering all complexities and contestations behind the violence.
In addition to this, peace also needs to be seen through social processes. As Clasen (2006) argues in the "Gendered Peace Index": “by a process-orientated conception of peace, we can evaluate how peaceful our society is” (Clasen 2006 cited in Nair 2016: 71). This process has several steps which start from security and securing physical existence for all women and men in society. The peace process also includes stopping any kind of violence. It prepares the capacities for living a good life under the values of gender justice at the same time that considering conflict transformation (Harders 2011: 136).
I refer to the notion of the “violence triangle” by Galtung (1990). In the “violence triangle”, violence is direct, structural, or cultural and Galtung's focus is on systems and structures of inequality (Confortini 2006: 356). On one hand, as Breins (1998) considers, gender equality is a precondition
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for a culture of peace (Jordan 2003: 248), and on the other hand “peace involves nothing less than transforming the structures that exacerbate inequalities” (Duncanson 2016, cited in Donahoe 2017:
122). Consequently, I see how women in this research look for their rights while encountering different parts of the violence triangle.
2.6. Patriarchy
The word patriarchy originates from the Greek word “patriarch,” which refers to both head of the family and head of the race (Edström 2014: 79). While defining the term “patriarchal,” Sylvia Walby (1989), Iris Young (2003), Raewyn Connell (1990), and Wendy Brown (1995) point out that policies may be considered patriarchal when they mark men and women as different (Andrews
& Shahrokni 2014: 154). Patriarchy pervades throughout different levels of society, from the political and religious levels to social, and economic levels. Moreover, it has a function in various spaces such as urban and rural (Nkealah 2013: 221). According to Edström (2014: 79), the logic working at the core of patriarchy is an emphasis on exclusive, linear, masculine descent of attribution, legitimacy, power, and meaning. In the process, it delineates the connected and legitimate group, excluding and devaluing all ‘others’.
As Kohli (2014: 61) puts it, from a theoretical point of view, the issue of private and public patriarchy needs to be reviewed. Kohli refers to Sylvia Walby (1990) as one of the scholars who expands these concepts. Walby advances the idea of private and public patriarchy in her book Theorising Patriarchy (1990). According to Walby (1990) western society has developed in the last 100 years from private to public patriarchy. “In public patriarchy,” she argues, “women have access to public arenas, and individual patriarchs within their families may no longer exploit them.
They may still be exploited by men through their subordination in public arenas of employment.
On the other hand, in private patriarchy women are controlled by male patriarchs within their homes” (Walby 1990 cited in Kohli 2014: 61).
Kohli (2014: 61) also look at the transformation of private patriarchy to public patriarchy. kohli argue that the intertwined process of private and public patriarchy and the way that they co-exist should be investigated in different societies. Accordingly, private patriarchy reproduces inequality and control women’s choices not simply at the household level, but at a wider community level and in the job markets through job discrimination and gender segregation of women.
Besides, according to Edström (2014: 73), as patriarchy pertains to gendered power, different arguments on the kinds of power that it proposes should be examined: “these may be termed as
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power over, power to, power with and power within”. According to Edström (2014), the levels for analysing gendered power in a gender system are internal (personal), interpersonal, institutional, and ideological levels. Indeed, the ideological level becomes crucial in patriarchy, for it is at that level that male supremacy is naturalized and affects the way we internalize gender.
According to Nkealah (2013: 222) patriarchy and its detrimental effects on the lives of women are central to feminist studies. Feminist theory points to the higher prevalence of male domination towards women in society for measuring patriarchy. Pam Morris holds that in patriarchal cultures, women’s needs are regarded as secondary, and “the patriarchal oppression of women takes many forms and operates through various media, including the law, education, employment, religion, the family, and cultural practices.” In the same manner, Kaplan (1994) argues that power is maintained by men through ideologies of gender inequality (Nkealah 2013: 222).
The literature of intersectionality looks at patriarchy from a different standpoint. As Patil (2013:
847) puts it Kandiyoti (1988), Pilcher (2004), and Whelehan (2004) have criticized the traditional feminist concept of patriarchy. Their focus is on a number of interrelated dimensions of patriarchy.
According to them, patriarchy as a term for denoting gender inequality or gendered power relationships between women and men, homogenize and totalize gender oppression (Patil 2013:
847-850).
Patil (2013: 850) refers to different critiques of patriarchy. According to her, recent critiques have focused on interrelated dimensions. As Patil (2013) puts it "Perhaps the central critique concerns patriarchy’s unidimensional conceptualization of gender, its dichotomization of gendered individuals into women and men, and its neglect of differences and power relations within each category.” Besides, she also refers to the critiques which focus on such neglected issues as race, class, nation, culture, and sexuality. According to her research, a second major critique concerns patriarchy’s universalization of the dichotomy between gender and its connected assumptions across time and space. Besides, the use of the term “patriarchy” has also been critiqued as tautological. According to Patil (2013: 851), patriarchy itself becomes an explanation for gendered power relations. In this case, patriarchy is assumed to be the reason for gender inequality. By this line, patriarchy as a term does not consider whether it is possible to constitute or reconstitute patriarchal arrangements.
Similarly, Ghvamshahidi (1995: 135) refers to the works of Mohanty and colleagues (1991) that warn scholars about the danger of presenting women of the global south as victims of their own traditions. Instead, they argue that women must be studied as subjects and agents. Ghvamshahidi
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argues that patriarchy should be examined in a specific reality where ideology and material life in a specific culture interact. As she puts: “Patriarchy can be seen as a set of beliefs and attitudes toward all phenomena generating roles and regulations that determine a distinct arrangement for the relationship between men and women. It is neither static nor monolithic; it shows modifications and variations across socioeconomic system culture, and time” (Ghvamshahidi 1995: 137).
Deniz Kandiyoti is one of the scholars who try to identify different forms of patriarchy through an analysis of women's strategies in dealing with them. As she puts it: “I will argue that women strategize within a set of concrete constraints that reveal and define the blueprint of what I will term the patriarchal bargain' of any given society, which may exhibit variations according to class, caste, and ethnicity” (Kandiyoti 1988: 274). She also emphasizes the powerful influence of such bargains on the shaping of women's gendered subjectivity. Strictly speaking, Kandiyoti’s (1988:
275) concept of a ‘patriarchal bargain’ determines the nature of gender ideology in the different contexts and sheds light on specific forms of women's active or passive resistance in the face of their oppression. Patriarchal bargains are neither uncontested nor immutable, but “susceptible to historical transformations”.
In particular, women may reinforce particular traditional or humiliating practices to this bargain to gain new rights (Andrews & Shahrokni 2014: 153).As Kandiyoti puts it, the analyses of women's strategies might shed light on the nature of patriarchal systems concerning culture and class, race, gender. She explains that these coping strategies can show how men and women resist, accommodate, adapt, and conflict with each other over resources, rights, and responsibilities.
In my view, according to the theoretical arguments, the traditional feminist concept of patriarchy is problematic, as it regards patriarchy as static and all-encompassing; as a result, it does not take into account the plurality of identities, contexts, experiences, and affiliations within them. I argue that through co-existence and intertwining of private and public patriarchy in the geography that
“classic patriarchy” (Kandiyoti 1988) is still alive. Thus, I adopt Kandiyoti’s 1988 term of bargaining with patriarchy. This term refers to women’s strategies to conform to the demands of patriarchy to gain some social, political, or benefits.
2.7. Conflict Transformation
Conflict transformation is a dynamic process (Väyrynen 1991:6) and a holistic and multi-faceted approach in managing conflicts (Lederach1995, cited in Miall 2004: 6). The conflict transformation approach tries to present something new to human thinking and interaction (Francis
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2002: 59). It deals with the social roots that are the cause of collective violence to support justice and reconciliation (Reimann 2004, cited in Reich 2006:18–19). It is an intended or unintended approach with invisible progress
;
it is not only about adjusting competing interests (Väyrynen 1991: 6). Conflict transformation is a general and comprehensive approach, addressing a range of dimensions. It aims to develop human capacity and to support structural changes. This process does not look to facilitate outcomes in the time of settlements (Miall 2004: 17). Transforming conflicts may occur as a result of repeated experiences that come from historical experiences (Wallensteen 1990 cited in Väyrynen 1991:129).Conflict transformation includes a number of dimensions from micro, local, grassroots, and short- term dimensions to macro, global, elite, and long-term (Miall 2004: 18). And as Väyrynen argues many unresolved conflicts may find their solution only through the process of transformation (Väyrynen 1991: 6). Miall asserts that contemporary conflicts are asymmetric and have their roots in inequalities of power and status (Miall 2004: 3). Indeed, the process of transformation would involve promoting concrete steps towards gender equality as well (Harders 2011: 149). In conflict transformation, the role of local actors and individuals as bottom-up sectors in peace building activities and the people who are involved in the conflict is crucial (Shrock-Shenk.et al 1999: 52).
In other words, bottom-up sectors as a critical principle of transformation (Ropers 2000) can strengthen local capacities for peace (Reich 2006: 27). Conflict transformation theories are associated with every day and historical changes that transform collective violence in terms of its scope, nature, and function (Väyrynen 1991: 6).
Put simply, conflict transformation requires groups of locals who respect others by making more space for them (Shrock-Shenk.et al 1999: 52). These local partners are local peace building actors and lively networks of actors. NGOs are a good example of local actors, which are independent of the state. They are also independent of political parties and focus on community-oriented purposes and seeking nonviolent actions (Reich 2006: 10, 27). In this respect, John Paul Lederach (1994) represents different levels of conflict transformation as a pyramid of ‘grass-roots' society, a middle layer of relatively influential people, and a minimal top level of leadership. According to his arguments, the middle layer can have an impact on those above and below them (Lederach 1994 cited in Francis 2002: 33). Following Lederach, NGO practitioners advocate a sustained level of engagement over a more extended time. They seek an in-depth understanding of the roots of conflict, working closely with people both within and outside the conflict parties. They try to open a space for dialogue, sustain local or national conferences and workshops on paths towards peace. In the same manner, NGOs identify opportunities for development and engage in peace
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building, relationship-building, and institution-building over the longer term (Miall 2004: 14).
In terms of the relationship between gender issues and conflict transformation, it is worth referring to the idea of cultural violence, which is introduced also by Galtung (1990). According to him, contradictions in the structure of society can result in conflict and cultural violence. According to Galtung, "those aspects of culture exemplified by religion and ideology, language, art, and empirical science which can be used to justify and legitimize structural violence and when the act of direct violence and structural ones are legitimized and accepted in society"(Galtung 1990: 291).
Indeed, lasting peace cannot be achieved without the transformation of the culture that surrounds us (Shrock-Shenk.et al 1999: 52). Hence, conflict transformation also means cultural transformation for all of us (Francis 2002: 82). Cockburn (2004) clarifies the relationship between gender relations and conflict transformation and argues that war and peace mark extremes on a gendered "continuum of violence" (Harders 2011: 133).
Francis (2002: 77) refers to the traditional exclusion of women from inheritance rights, or female genital mutilation as examples of cultural violence against women. According to Francis maintaining such traditions in African societies is considered an essential way of resisting the cultural imperialism of the West. However, Harders (2011: 150) argues that cultural relativism gives oppressive regimes leeway to hide human rights violations behind "traditions" (Harders 2011: 150). This point of view supports what (Galtung 1996: 196-197) argues about changing the moral color of the act from red wrong to acceptable green or at least to yellow/acceptable as one way of cultural violence.
According to Galtung (1996: 196-197), the use of power and the legitimation of the use of power in violence studies are about two problems: the use of violence and the legitimation of that use.
“The study of cultural violence highlights how the act of direct violence and the fact of structural violence are legitimized and thus rendered acceptable in society. According to Galtung another way of cultural violence is “by making reality opaque, so that we do not see the violent act or fact, or at least not as violent. This is more easily done with some forms of violence than with others. Hence, peace studies need a violence typology, in much the same way as pathology is among the prerequisites for health studies” (Galtung 1996: 197).
Francis (2002: 91) argues that conflict transformation is implemented in several steps. Awareness- raising is called the first step in conflict transformation, which includes political awareness, awareness of interpersonal and group dynamics, and self-awareness that can consist of women's awareness as well. As Clasen (2006) argues, women's awareness can be regarded as a door to a
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peaceful society, whereas in a peaceful society, women and men can live with their various roles and identities. The process of raising awareness would involve those organizations that are promoting concrete steps towards gender equality and creating manifold livelihoods and perspectives for men and women (Harders 2011: 147-149).
Thus, women in traditional societies are affected by the strict boundaries set through patriarchal cultures and rules. These boundaries can start a conflict. According to Galtung's conflict triangle model: “Violence can start at any corner in the direct structural-cultural violence triangle and is easily transmitted to the other corners” (Galtung 1990: 302). Eventually, conflict transformation considers conflict as a catalyst, a door to change, and the process of engaging with and transforming the relationships. This approach suggests that conflicts should be transformed gradually and should include a variety of actors. However, as Miall (2004: 17) argues, the exact impacts of conflict transformation activities on the conflict are not clear yet.
Besides, looking at what Väyrynen (1991) argues about conflict transformation and his stress on dynamic terms in transforming the conflict is relevant here. As Miall (2004: 5) asserts “his approach is primarily analytical and theoretical but is also suggestive of the types of intervention that peacebuilders should be considering”. Väyrynen (1991: 6) in a chapter of To Settle or to Transform? proposed that conflicts could be transformed by four types of change:
• actor transformations – internal changes in parties, or the appearance of new parties;
• issue transformations – altering the agenda of conflict issues;
• rule transformations – changes in the norms or rules governing a conflict;
• structural transformations – the entire structure of relationships and power distribution in the conflict are transformed.
According to Reimann (2000), the concept of constructive conflict transformation is a comprehensive and holistic approach for the transformation of cultural and structural causes of conflict (Reich 2006: 17). This transforming process needs to consider the characteristics of traditional and modern societies in terms of authority and submission. Indeed, when ‘modern' cultures emphasize equality, ‘traditional' societies tend to emphasize hierarchy (Francis 2002: 61).
In the situation of supervisor influencing or terminating supervisee, it might lead to oppression in the broader social structures (Shrock-Shenk.et al 1999: 35).
One crucial factor here is that “peace” does not have the same relevance to all cultural systems (Salem 1994). For instance, in some societies, the notions of "justice" or "social justice" are more
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relevant, and then activists who strive for such visions are thus known as "justice activists" and not peace activists (Reich 2006: 12). To sum up, international concepts need to adapt to the local context in dialogue with those women and men who challenge the gendered regulations and restrictions of their societies.
I see the notion of conflict transformation by considering the characteristics of traditional and modern societies in terms of authority and submission. I refer to the notion that conflict transformation means cultural transformation (Francis 2002: 82 and Shrock-Shenk.et al 1999: 52).
Besides, I refer to different levels of conflict transformation and consider that the local activists can suggest sustainable answers to the dilemmas of cultural sensitivity and cultural relativism in their particular contexts.
3. Methodology and ethical discussion
This chapter introduces the methodological tools in this research. I discuss my methodology in which I justify my data collection process, the reasons behind using narrative interviews, and my positionality in this research. Then I elaborate on the data analysis process besides ethical considerations. In this chapter, I provide information about my participants, the organizations, and the cities and times in which I conducted my interviews (see Appendix B). For the data gathering process, this thesis uses in-depth narrative interviews. In this chapter, I introduce the methodological tools in this research which are thematic and narrative analysis tools and I argue how to categorize data in different themes.
3.1. Data Collection
For conducting this research, I traveled to Iran and interviewed women activists who have been active in the women’s movement in Iran. I worked on the hypothesis that an interview in social studies is not just a window on social reality; it is a sample of reality (Czarniawska-Joerges 2004:
52). To access these samples of the realities and understanding the context from the perspective of women who have been living and acting as independent women rights activists in Iran after the Islamic revolution, I decided to gather some primary data. The possibility of collecting these testimonies through face to face interviews from inside the country is rare. Most of the researches in this field are done by women activists who have been in exile for years after the Islamic revolution and do their research from long physical distance.
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This research is based on nine in-depth and open-ended interviews completed during January, February and June 2018 in Iran. All the interviewees are living in the capital city of Tehran except one, who lives in the city of Mashhad. These women range in age from 28 to 93 years and come from different parts of society with different religious and political backgrounds. All the respondents have university degrees and had work experiences in various fields such as a schoolteacher, a Quranic teacher, a member of the parliament, a journalist, a university teacher, an entrepreneur, and a specialist doctor. All the women in this research have a connection to women's NGOs as founders or active members. While I did not ask them to introduce themselves separately, they referred to their qualifications and careers in the course of our conversation.
Accessing special people and interviewing them in Iran need some prior connections; you must be known to friends of friends, or friends of the family, and only then you would be allowed admittance. I tried to use my journalistic connections and some familiar names to let the interviewees trust me. I recorded all the interviews except one of them and transcribed approximately 30 hours of recorded narrations (see Appendix B). I conducted interviews in Persian.
When I had completed my interviews and returned to Finland, I began to transcribe the interviews myself. Since this research depends on my participants’ narratives, I decided to use their quotes as much as the capacity of this thesis would let me. I have tried to let my interviewees speak for themselves. The translation process was a difficult phase for me because transferring the meanings and feelings from one language to another is not easy when words carry different emotions, although they have the same meanings. First, I decided to translate the parts of these narrations according to their relevance to my specific research question. Soon I realized that I cannot do that as they all try to shed light and conceptualize the ongoing women’s movement in Iran from various approaches. For this reason, I just dropped some repetitions and similar notions that different activists narrated and excluded some specific thoughts that have less relevance to the research in this phase.
3.2. Interviews
In peace and conflict research, scholars try to transfer the voices of micro-levels, especially by narrative turns (Mac Ginty & Firchow 2016: 309). A narrative interview is an influential tool for recollecting the personal experiences (Scheibelhofer 2008: 405). As Maynes, Pierce, and Laslett argue, personal narratives-autobiographies, oral histories, life history interviews, and memoirs are essential research tools for understanding the relationship between people and their societies
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(Gansel & Vanderbeke 2012: 182). As Brouneus (2011: 130) puts it, by doing an in-depth interview, the researcher becomes an active listener and tries to lead conversations in an extended discussion. In peace studies using in-depth interviews is more common for understanding the challenges, possibilities, and risks of peace at grassroots levels According to Alasdair Mac Intyre (1981- 1990), social life is a narrative; indeed, narratives are useful tools that they can open a path to the most typical form of social life (Czarniawska-Joerges 2004: 15).
Narratives are the central mechanisms for meaning-making for people and they can open a window into human interactions (Riessman & Quinney 2005: 392). Narratives can provide insight into the variety of lived experiences by unfolding the meaning experienced by society's members (Bamberg 2012: 3). According to Ochs et al. (1996), narratives consist of components that include setting, internal response, consequence, and reactions. It is very crucial that by narrations, respondents try to construct an identity for themselves (Stewart & Maxwell 2010: 37). In this respect, while I was conducting in-depth interviews, I recognized that all my respondents preferred to narrate their long- term experiences in the women’s movement. I explained the subject of my research when I called them up to arrange the time for our meetings, and then in the meetings, they told their stories in their narrative styles.
An explanatory note seems appropriate here. In some of these interviews, my method was a combination. In the first phase of the interview, I asked open-ended questions. Then in the second phase, I asked some limited semi-structured questions that allowed for a focused dialogue. This combined method, which is called a problem-centered interview, is methodologically interesting.
This method gives freedom to the interviewee to structure the narration at the beginning according to the relevant settings. Then the researcher can set up specific questions that are especially relevant for the research focus at the later stages of the interview (Scheibelhofer 2008: 403). In this respect, I defined the topic for my interviewees; however, as a researcher, I stayed flexible during the interview process, adapting the plan according to what came up during the interviews. Then in case, specific themes relevant to the topic did not come up in their narrations, I asked them some specific questions.
For instance, I asked one of the women about her definition of Islamic feminism. I asked one of the other women to evaluate herself in the feminist structure although I let them continue in their way in telling their stories. My aim was gaining further insights into their stories while at the same time I was aware, as Scheibelhofer (2008: 408) puts it, that the researcher should not ask questions that are not logically related to what had been said earlier. During these interviews, I realized that how these women differ from each other in terms of sharing their experiences (cf. Möller 2011: 75).
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Indeed, I gave sufficient space to my interviewees to express themselves, and I did not interrupt them during their conversations. Accordingly, some of the interviews lasted for more than 4 hours which made my transcription process very lengthy. These narrations have considerable worth for my research and can open a new path for me in researching women’s movement in Iran.
3.3. Data Analysis
As indicated by Polkinghorne (2007: 407) narrative research is the study of stories. In the narrative analysis, meanings, and the way of using those meanings are crucial (Bamberg 2012: 5). The beginnings of narrative analysis can be traced back to studies of the Bible, Talmud, and Quran (Czarniawska-Joerges 2004: 14). In this research, I applied the narrative and thematic analysis as analytical approaches. Through narrative analysis, one can access the knowledge which is not recognizable clearly in the stories. Understanding what takes place between the narrator and analyst and between analyst and audience can enrich the findings (Gansel & Vanderbeke 2012: 182).
Besides, by using the thematic method, I try to transfer the women's stories explicitly with limited reflection on the narrations' implicit meaning. As Vaismoradi et al. (2016: 100-101) argue, the creativity of the researcher is an integral part of these kinds of analysis. Polkinghorne (2007: 483) refers to the researcher's creativity and explains that in analysing the narrative interviews, the researcher tries to apply cognitive processes for recognizing patterns and similarities in texts.
In the same manner, I find similar patterns that the interviewees put in their narrations. then I divide these narrations into the different themes to find the relations and the way that they complete each other. According to Vaismoradi et al. (2016: 101), themes are the product of data analysis that yields practical results in the field of study. The theme is used as an attribute, descriptor, element, and concept which enables researchers to answer the research question. In this respect, narratives try to embody the themes of the cultural contexts and the way that they are developing (Czarniawska-Joerges 2004: 52). In this thesis, themes have emerged after the interviews and in the transcription process. When I started transcribing the recordings, I wrote down all the conversations in Persian. Then I had nine transcription documents in Persian, and I re-read my data several times.
I did not use any computer-assisted data analysis programs because I was already familiar with the materials and I understood and recognized the main points of focus. Indeed, I realized that the interviewees used similar themes. Then by looking at my primary research question, and after several times reading the materials, I found and highlighted similar themes in each transcription document.
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These thematic categorizations for analysing the result of this research according to the transcription phase are Feminism, Islamic Feminism, equality and gender justice, patriarchal culture and women's resistance models, women's NGOs, the circle of trustworthy women, women in politics. There is also a sub-theme that is bargaining with patriarchy as a strategy.
In the analysis phase, I decided to use "quotes" to highlight the women's perspectives in their own words. Quotes can also enhance the readers' understanding of who they are and can increase the credibility of the reporting (Craig 2006: 84–88). Pierre (1997) suggests the term “transgressive data”, which considers emotional and sensual data in methodological exploration (Mallozzi 2009:
1051). In this respect, in this thesis, I have tried to explain such details about the surroundings and feelings of these women as much as I could; however, this was not enough. Indeed, I used quotes as a helpful tool to transfer the meanings. I used quotes from the interviews to illustrate the themes.
About using quotes, I am aware that there are ethical challenges in choosing quotes and about deciding on how to corroborate them (Craig 2006: 88). As Allmark et al. (2009: 49-53) argue, the interviewer usually has control over which quotes are used, how they are used, and how they are interpreted. Using quotes has some weaknesses; here the researcher should consider the ethical issues as well. For instance, many interviews concern matters that are sensitive and which might potentially harm both interviewees and interviewers. Moreover, friendship and sharing the same gender with the interviewees sometimes make the interviewees narrate in greater detail and exhibit a high level of involvement in the topic. In this respect, considering the issue of privacy is very crucial in using the quotes in qualitative research.
3.4. Ethical Discussion
"Although all scholars attempt to be non-directive, all research has a footprint especially in the translation of narrations from another local language to the English language especially in human subjects, and these may have a risk of distorting (consciously or unconsciously) the expressions, motivations or feelings of the researched" (Mac Ginty & Firchow 2016: 321).
Considering the sensitive nature of peace research, qualitative research particularly fieldwork and in-depth interviewing suffers from a variety of technical and methodological challenges. Brounenus (2011: 141) stated the importance of ethical informed risk assessment and ethically informed decision-making in all stages when conducting in-depth interviews in peace research studies.
Avoiding research fatigue, minimize the risk of doing harm, protecting the interview data,
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analyzing data with care, and deciding on when and what to publish are ethical considerations in doing qualitative research in peace study. Security is another important ethical issue and the main responsibility of the researcher is to assess and ensure the security of the population under study.
Besides as Skinner (2014: 186-187) suggests these kinds of research can become emotionally draining, which may lead to difficulties in separating emotions from ethics. Skinner describes her feelings during her field research as follows: “at best, I felt helpless; at worst, I felt voyeuristic”.
In this research, I try to consider all these ethical issues; however, I know that there will be some biases when I am writing about my country. One of the other ethical issues in this thesis is from the gender perspective, that of, a woman interviewing women. Women interviewing women still involve complex issues such as social status, the positionality of insiders and outsiders, interviewer self-disclosure and interviewee's voice (cf. Mallozzi 2009: 1052). indeed, the issues of positionality and power relations should be considered as well. My positionality as an Iranian woman was with me during this research from conducting the interviews to transcribing, as well as during the translation process and analysis. As Sultana (2007: 377) argues about her fieldwork in Bangladesh,
“I was acutely aware of my class and educational privilege. As such, I was simultaneously an insider, outsider, both and neither. The borders that I crossed, I feel, are always here within me, negotiating the various locations and subjectivities I simultaneously feel a part of and apart from.”
Although I have tried to put aside my personal feelings and priorities, I am an Iranian woman who has been experiencing the same challenges as the interviewees of this research have. I am aware of the probable biases that I might have and tried not to analyse according to those priorities and tried to be careful about neutrality.
Having grown up, studied, and worked in Iran, I have intimate knowledge of the cases. I interviewed women in my own country with my own language. Indeed, on one hand, I have been insider academia to the field. On the other hand, I was an outsider as I am not a member of any of the women's NGOs or political activists neither women's rights activists. Indeed, as Dincer (2017: 85) puts it while taking an interview, the statutes of insider or outsider are not fixed, and my positionality is consequently transferred during the interview process. Accordingly, “a negotiation of shifting positions where the binary structures suggested by the role differences of interviewer خذand interviewee in the interview situation mask the more dynamic interactions actually at play in that situation” (Griffin, 2016 cited in Dincer 2017: 85).
Similarly, in her studies on women’s movement in Turkey as an insider, Dincer (2017: 85) argues,
“although I felt like an insider and/or outsider during the interviews, I argue that these positions were not fixed and that no one could be a complete insider/outsider to someone else or to a
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community but rather that these positions are partial, as everyone has several similarities and affiliations but also differences based on gender, age, class, education, ideology and other facto.”
Besides, Fleming (2018: 315) refers to the challenge of access to privileged information as an insider (some of which may be personal or incidental). He insists that such access is critical. Thus, insiders need to reflect on whether it is ethical to use their ‘inside knowledge’ for research purposes or not. According to Fleming, as an insider, the researcher does not need to spend time getting to know the nuances of the context of the research. This turns out to be the real advantage during the analysis and interpretation phase of the research process.
However, as Andrews & Shahrokni (2014: 157) argue, in this situation choosing the relevant data would be a challenging issue. In line with their argument during their fieldwork in Tehran, I was careful not to depend too heavily on my taken-for-granted understandings of respondents' statements and gestures and I preferred to keep my opinions to myself. At this instance, immediate transcription of the interviews was one of the strategies to address this problem. I have followed this guideline in my own way. Although I did the full transcription after I came back to Finland, after each interview I listened to the recordings and complete my interview diary. By this method, I negated any unnecessary exclusion of particular data or judgment and I consciously did not consider all the details. By positioning myself as an outsider, I did not allow my familiarity with the subject to lead me to compare the interviewees' statements in the transcription phase; neither did I allow myself to classify the data or prioritize some points of view over others.
Besides, the translation process has been a particular challenge in this thesis. I had 30 hours of recorded interviews. I wrote down the conversations in Persian. By using my mother tongue, I tried to understand the exact meaning of words. Then during the translation phase, I put my efforts to translate the meaning of the words as precisely as I could. I am aware that some words might transfer different meanings in another language. According to Brouneus (2011: 141-143), by doing an in-depth interview in social science researchers are confronted with various responsibilities.
More than the way of doing the research, the researcher should consider the challenges which come with the consequences of the study. The ethical golden rule here is not to harm (Wood 2006: 379).
Consequently, a researcher must assure the interviewees that the research does not put them at any higher risk. In this respect, this research may encounter some sensitivity in terms of religion and state.
According to ethical rules, I informed my interviewees that they had a right to stay anonymous and to withdraw at any time. None of my interviewees except two of the women asked me to anonymize them. They all were aware of the processes of this research and how I would use their voices. They
